He may be driving Top Gear, but producer Andy Wilman tells SEAN O'GRADY he's not much of a petrolhead
What sort of car do you think the producer of Top Gear - the creator of phantasmagorical automotive telly - might drive? Answer: a 7-year-old Honda Jazz (1.4 litre, petrol).
When I asked Andy Wilman this most personal of questions - for a petrolhead a far more intrusive query than
asking if he's ever had an affair or suffered from piles - I wasn't that surprised by the response. No, really.
What shocked me was that there was no "and" at the end of his answer. No "and there's my old Camaro in the garage, I just haven't got round to fixing it". No costly Lamborghini Countachs for him. Okay, he's thinking about a new Kia Soul, but that doesn't really count as glamour, does it?
No, Wilman prefers to live out his fantasies vicariously, on beta tape, including the hour-long travel specials - where they "arse around" in Wilman's phrase - like the one to Vietnam which marks the end of the current series.
But things will be different in the next series. They are not so high on petrol they can ignore the biggest economic downturn in three-quarters of a century. Wilman says: "We were going to do a big road trip film with a Lambo and a Porsche and something else ... but now [it's] cars like the Toyota iQ, because they're smart and clever and you can sense that mood. We're not that thick."
Even unfashionable classics such as an old Citroen Ami 8 and a Lanchester will be featured in the next run (they cost under a grand each, apparently).
No more supercars, then? "The big sexy cars we've always treated like pin-ups. If you were testing a 250,000 ($633,000) Zonda, how many of our viewers are actually seeing what it's like because they might buy it? The recession hasn't made any difference because they're watching it as car porn and dreaming."
Thoughts about how Top Gear might mutate in future also seem at the forefront of Wilman's creative mind. He has considered the concept of a programme called Boring Top Gear, which would provide the sort of down-to-earth consumer advice about motoring that has been cheerfully junked in favour of playing darts with scrap cars and blowing up caravans. It appeals to Wilman if only because it would allow him to be the producer of the first show with the world "boring" in the title.
Is Top Gear without Jeremy Clarkson unthinkable? "No," says Wilman, but he feels it wouldn't have the "life force" it has now. "If you've got a Clarkson you're halfway there. That guy is known for his presenting, but as a TV brain he is phenomenal."
The key is that Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are all part of the editorial process, not mere actors looking for someone else to write their lines. The presenters' "triangle is getting flatter" he says. Thanks to Hammond and May's other TV work, "they've found their voice".
But what do the ladies see in Clarkson, Hammond and May? Wilman goes into a lengthy, chuckly riff on their subtle sex appeal: "If there was a poll of girls like one of those Heat magazine polls of which TV presenter would you like to shag the brains out of, they wouldn't win it. But which TV presenters would you like a night out with - they'd win it, because they'd think, 'I'll have real laugh and they'll see me safely to my door'. And also because they've
got a passion about what they do. They're like men in allotment sheds, and I think girls watch them thinking 'well, my partner's like that and my partner's not so bad now, because he's like those three twats on the telly'."
Those "three twats on the telly" are doing rather well at the moment. Clarkson's outbursts don't worry Wilman, and, while the BBC management see him as a "danger presenter", he thinks he won't end up in a Brand/Ross mess because he's "smarter than that". Hammond's health seems fine, and, after a 29-second pause for thought, Wilman agrees that he wouldn't put the Hamster through another near-death experience. Thanks to Hammond's survival
and the chemistry of the three - a sort of holy trinity of the male mindset - the future of the show seems assured. Maybe Wilman should celebrate success by treating himself to a nice, mint Lamborghini Countach?
LOWDOWN
Who: Andy Wilman
What: Top Gear series finale
When and where:7.30pm Sunday, Prime
Also: See page 20 for finale preview
- INDEPENDENT